Monsanto, Starbucks, Walmart respond to Neil Young's new album

on Thu, 06/18/2015 - 16:23

Later this month, Neil Young will release "The Monsanto Years", an album with his new band "Promise of the Real", which features Willie Nelson's sons Lukas and Micah Nelson. "The Monsanto Years" is a protest album about the food industry giant, and features songs that are critical of a number of large corporations.

Billboard provided lyrics from the album to a handful of the mentioned corporations and asked for their take on Young's criticism. Chevron, Walmart, Starbucks, and Monsanto all responded to Billboard's inquiry. Find statements from Monsanto and Starbucks (which Young targets on "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop", previously "Rock Starbucks") below.

Monsanto:

"Many of us at Monsanto have been and are fans of Neil Young. Unfortunately, for some of us, his current album may fail to reflect our strong beliefs in what we do every day to help make agriculture more sustainable. We recognize there is a lot of misinformation about who we are and what we do – and unfortunately several of those myths seem to be captured in these lyrics."

Starbucks:

"Starbucks has not taken a position on the issue of GMO [genetically modified organism] labeling. As a company with stores and a product presence in every state, we prefer a national solution."

The Monsanto Years is out on June 29 via Reprise. It comes in a CD/DVD package containing a documentary about the making of the album.